8. It contains vitamines, the living, organic principles essential to growth, and found only in fresh or slightly cooked foods.
9. It has growth-producing properties found in no substitute. In a study made not long since of 100,000 French soldiers, it was found that the group of those who in their infancy had been nursed for six months averaged heavier and taller than those nursed only three months; the group nursed nine months likewise exceeded in height and stature those nursed only six months. Similar phenomena have been noted by many observers.
10. It produces better teeth, less subject to decay, both first and second set.
11. Nursing her baby promotes the return of pelvic organs to their normal condition, and thus promotes the mother’s comfort, shapeliness and health.
12. It fosters her love for her baby, and the baby’s love for her.
Patent baby foods are usually either some form of dried or condensed milk, or a dextrinized cereal. The constituents having been subjected to a high temperature, the vitamines have been destroyed; there are frequent cases of scurvy among babies so fed. These preparations usually contain a high percentage of starch or sugar, with an insufficiency of proteins, fats, and minerals; this produces plump babies that look flourishing in pictures, but that are lacking in solid muscles, bone and nerve tissue, and are subject to rickets, With little resistance for pneumonia or other germ diseases. Patent baby foods, condensed or powdered milk, are the last makeshift.
If artificial feeding becomes necessary, clean cow’s milk is the best substitute. Cow’s milk is made for the calf, whose stomach and digestion are much coarser, and development much more rapid, than the baby’s. As produced, it contains too high a percentage of protein and lime, too low a percentage of sugar and phosphorus, and the curd is too large and coarse for the baby’s digestion. It is difficult to produce perfectly clean, and to keep perfectly sweet until feeding. It must be modified carefully, according to the age and condition of the baby.
The formula is a technical matter for the medical or dietetic specialist to work out and prescribe in each individual case, and to change as the individual baby requires; it is no more a subject for experiment by a novice than is a case of fever. The formula prescribed must be prepared with scrupulous cleanliness and exactness.
As about ninety mothers in every hundred are fitted and able, with wise prenatal and postnatal hygiene, to nurse their babies, the subject of artificial feeding merits relatively less attention.
Ability to nurse is affected by conditions long before motherhood begins. An active, out-of-door life, with freedom from nervous strain or worry, and with clothing that does not compress or overheat the breasts, is important from childhood. Alcoholism in the mother’s father, or Cæsarean birth of the child, usually inhibit nursing.